Developer Help Required

Do you have an interest in how social tools may be used to support informal learning, and have experience developing with AJAX, Google APIs Netvibes or other widget architectures?

We have some funding from a previous project which needs to be used up by the end of July 2010 and would like to use it to undertake some development work to move our "Charting" ideas forward.

Charting is the mechanism by which an individual manages their interaction with the people and knowledge which contribute to their learning and development.

Whilst a short-term, full-time post based in Glasgow would be preferable, we are flexible about how the money might be used and would be open to creative suggestions. A key determinant is the short-time scale, so someone who can get started on the project as soon as possible would be particularly desirable.

The aims of the project are:

• To analyse use cases, mockups and existing scenarios, and identify appropriate platform(s) for development. Although a number of platform options should be assessed, use of Google tools/APIs would be the preferred option should they prove suitable.


• Development of proof of concept mini applications/widgets constituting a prototype charting system.

We expect the developer would have skills in the following:

• a range of potential technical solutions. Web2.0 widgets, Web APIs such as Google, Netvibes UWA, Adobe Air/Flex, AJAX, Rich Internet Applications.


• web programming experience, including client side scripting capabilities, web programming and experience with relational databases. Experience with web-centric technologies such as Universal Widget Architecture and AJAX, and Google APIs.

If you are interested in being involved, contact colin.milligan@gcal.ac.uk summarising your background and indicating your availability over the next 4 months.

EU FP7 STREP proposal

Isobel Falconer, Allison Littlejohn, Anoush Margaryan and Colin Milligan of the Caledonian Academy have been partners within a European Consortium led by the Frauenhofer Society developing a proposal for a Medium-Scale Focused Research project proposal on Architectural Distributed Design Studios (ARDIDES).

The proposal was successfully submitted on October 27, 2009, under the 5th FP7 ICT-TEL call.

If funded, the project will last for 3 years, and will include development of a novel learning approach and a technological environment (Distributed Design Studio) to harness the power of collective intelligence in supporting professionals (architects, engineers, designers) in creative design.

The Caledonian Academy team will lead a workpackage on pedagogic conceptualisation and evaluation, building an understanding of the pedagogic and design processes in the Distributed Design Studio (DDS) and to analyse the impact of DDSs on design processes in real-world testbeds.

Other partners in the consotrium include: Fundació Privada Universitat i Tecnologia (Spain), Humance (Germany), ILT Solutions (Germany/UK), Fachhochschule Potsdam (Germany), Universitat Politècnica Catalunya (Spain), Open University Netherlands, Katholike Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), University IUAV of Venice (Italy), Università Politecnica delle Marche (Italy), Netherlands Organisation for Applied Research, TNO (Netherlands), Baufritz (Germany), Hormigones prefabricados de Catalunya (Spain), realities:united GmbH, studio for art and architecture (Germany).

EU FP7 IP proposal submitted

In the past few months Colin Milligan, Allison Littlejohn and Anoush Margaryan of the Caledonian Academy have been collaborating as partners within a European Consortium led by the Open University of the Netherlands developing a proposal for a Large-Scale Integrated Project on Networked Innovation in Collaborative Environments.

The proposal was successfully submitted on October 27, 2009, under the 5th FP7 ICT-TEL call.

If funded, the project will last for 4 years, and will include an investigation, development, evaluation and deployment of a social and technical infrastructure
to enhance informal learning and networked innovation by professionals in the workplace. The Caledonian Academy team will lead a workpackage on the development of a Learning Framework as well as a set of charting tools to support collective learning in the process of open networked innovation.

Other partners in the consotrium include: Center for Social Innovation (Austria), Aalborg University (Denmark), RealityLab (Austria), Siemens (Germany), Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and Telecommunications (Belgium), Logica (Netherlands), Politehnica University of Bucharest National Centre for Information Technology (Romania), and T6 ECO (Italy).

New member of the Caledonian Academy Team

Clemens Wieser will join the Caledonian Academy team on August 3, 2009. Clemens will conduct a PhD study on the role of social networks in enhancing students’ transition from education to the workplace.

Clemens obtained his Magister rer. nat. degree (equivalent to MSc) in Geography (major) and Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology (minors) at the University of Vienna in 2008. He passed his Master’s thesis titled “Student-centred teaching and its transfer problems into reallife geography teaching” with highest distinction and completed his Graduating Exam „mit Auszeichnung bestanden“ (equivalent to starred first degree).

Clemens’s research interests are in the intersection of imparting and acquisition of information. He has experience in qualitative research in teaching and didactics (Grounded Theory; hermeneutical text and data analysis) and evaluation of school pilot projects. His recent research projects included: Evaluation of a modular course system in a Viennese upper secondary school (AHS Rahlgasse, 2007); study on the impact of self-regulated and collective learning in geography school courses following Kilpatrick´s project method (2007); application of concepts of life world and everyday life in social science teaching (2008); reconstruction of teachers perceptions and strategies in „student-oriented teaching“ (2008). His further interests include Critical Theory and Frankfurt school of thought; Philosophy of education.

We warmly welcome Clemens to the Caledonian Academy and look forward to the fruitful collaboration ahead.

This 3-year study is funded by the Caledonian Academy and will be co-supervised by Dr. Isobel Falconer and Dr. Anoush Margaryan, with Prof. Allison Littlejohn as a member of the supervisory team.

Society for Research into Higher Education - newer researcher prize 2009

Karen Smith has been awarded the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) newer researcher prize 2009. Karen will use the prize money to develop work around the transformative potential of 'flying-faculty' transnational teaching experiences. In addition, Karen will sit on the SRHE's Research and Development Committee in 2010 and will be mentored by a senior higher education researcher from within the Society.

PhD Studentship - Being a Learner

Being a Learner: Dealing with ambiguity and complexity in research and knowledge work


We have secured funding for a new PhD studentship to be based at GCU. Here are the details:

We live in an increasingly complex and ambiguous world – sometimes described as supercomplex: ‘a world where nothing can be taken for granted, where no frame of understanding or of action can be entertained with any security’ (Barnett, 2000). Preparing and supporting researchers to engage effectively in such a world has become a key challenge to universities.

The proposed research will explore the attributes required and employed at transition from graduate to postgraduate and into a research-based career. This study will build on the pioneering work of the Caledonian Graduate Centre with Vitae, the Universities of Reading, Manchester and Southampton in developing a researcher’s attribute (disposition and qualities) framework for research students, researchers and research leaders which has benefits that relate to academic development.

A key feature of this research proposal is that it draws together expertise in education research from across the University. The supervisory team (Dr Colin Milligan, Professor Bonnie Steves and Professor David Smith) are specialists in learning communities, graduate researcher education and higher education policy respectively.

Applications are invited for a PhD Research Studentship within the Education Research Area at Glasgow Caledonian University. The studentship is for a period of three years, subject to satisfactory progress and provides payment of tuition fees at the UK/EU rate plus an annual stipend of £13,900 [please note that students from outside the EU are required to pay the difference between International and EU fees, currently this would amount to £6,100 per annum]. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop their research skills by contributing to other research activities in the centres for up to six hours each week.

Further details of the studentship including educational requirements and instructions for applicants are available as a PDF document: BeingALearner.pdf

JISC - Open Educational Resources evaluation and synthesis function

The Caledonian Academy has been funded to carry out the evaluation and synthesis function of the JISC programme on Open Educational Resources. The programme has funded indivudal, subject discipline and insitutional projects, which are expected to make 'a significant amount of existing learning resources freely available online' see: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/oer.aspx

The evaluation and synthesis function has three strands:

• A generic framework tool that will provide a strong foundation and common language for collating data from projects. The framework will allow us to structure our interventions with projects, and will be used a means of evaluating the 'openness' of their outcomes.
• Strand-specific evaluation activities will address how different communities and cultures are progressing towards openness in their shared practice. These will recruit mixed methods to examine social, technical, pedagogical and legal / organisational issues in each strand, and provide a synthesis account detailing barriers and opportunities for change.
• The final synthesis report will include recommendations to the funders and to the stakeholders represented in the three strands of the programme, and a version of the framework tool for use by the sector to audit progress towards more open practices around educational resources.

Working with consultants Lou McGill and Helen Beetham, Allison Littlejohn is the principal investigator and Karen Smith will lead the individual strand evaluation.

We have a project wiki which will keep you informed about the progress of the project: http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/oer/